Event #5: Compound men

Number of athletes: 24

Number of nations: 16

Defending Champion: Reo Wilde

World Champion: Stephan Hansen

The one-to-beat

Although Reo Wilde hasn’t won a major outdoor international since 2013, the same year he walked away from the World Games in Cali with the individual and mixed team gold medals, as the only man to claim victory in this relatively-new discipline at the World Games he’s still the one to beat.

The 43-year-old has been a staple on the world circuit through two decades and continues to medal event-in, event-out.

The story

Stephan Hansen, 22, and Mike Schloesser, 23, are the top-two ranked compound men in the world. Hansen is the reigning World Champion, Schloesser the previous.

They are, undoubtedly, the favourites to take World Games gold – but, with little to choose between the pair, who arrives shooting hotter in Wroclaw?

The athletes

Country-by-country, all 24 compound men competing at the Wroclaw 2017 World Games.

Australia

Intel: Known to be making a push for the worlds this year, Coghlan is a former world number two and Hyundai Archery World Cup bronze medallist who climbed the individual international podium for the first time in eight years with his third place at Shanghai 2017.

That event was 49-year-old Danie’s first world competition in our database. He finished 33rd individually and, with Pat and the Australian compound men’s team, ninth.

Short: Top eight.

Colombia

Intel: The fourth-place finisher at the last World Archery Championships, Cardona is still searching for his first individual world-level medal. He’s grabbed a fair few as part of a formidable mixed pairing with long-time world number one Sara Lopez – and the two are likely to be one of the favourites in Wroclaw.

Short: Likely to leave Poland with a medal.

Croatia

Intel: Buden had a break-out 2016, finishing third in Antalya and fourth at the Hyundai Archery World Cup Final, and is still only 19 years of age. Markes emerged on the world stage the same year – and finished fourth at both the last outdoor and indoor European Championships – but has not yet medalled.

Short: Minimum one top eight.

Denmark

Intel: The two strongest compound men from a team that’s flush with talent. Hansen is the reigning World Archery Champion and world number one, arriving in Wroclaw. Damsbo won the Hyundai Archery World Cup in 2013 and has podiumed consistently since making his international debut in 2002.

Short: Two strong contenders.

El Salvador

Intel: One of the nicest guys on the circuit, Roberto has a host of medals on the American continent – and one of those was a bronze medal at the last World Games in Cali in 2013. He also won a World Cup stage in 2015 in Medellin but has, simply, not found individual success this side of the pond before. That’s got to break, at some point.

Short: To root for.

Spain

Intel: A long-time international who has experience partnering Andrea Marcos (she won of the recent Salt Lake City stage of the Hyundai Archery World Cup individually) in the mixed team – finishing third at the Europeans in 2016 together – and a real shot at taking a medal in pairs in Wroclaw.

Short: Spain’s time to shine.

France

Intel: Peineau, the reigning indoor world champ, and Genet, the bronze medallist at the Hyundai Archery World Cup Final in 2015, have more than a couple of handfuls of international gongs between them.

Still recovering from an elbow injury that put him on the sidelines for the indoor season, Seb hasn’t quite returned to the form that had him at world number one as late as early 2016.

Dominique, meanwhile, didn’t win a match at the first two stages of this year’s Hyundai Archery World Cup – then passed two in Salt Lake.

Mexico

Intel: This 20-year-old made his first individual final on the Hyundai Archery World Cup stage at its most recent stage in Salt Lake City – despite not shooting at that level in two years – after coming second at the Pan Am Championships in 2016.

Gonzalez has an opportunity, in Wroclaw, to prove that the result was no fluke.

Netherlands

Intel: The world number two arriving in Wroclaw, Schloesser has, in his career (and over the 2017 season so far), a higher average arrow score – in both qualification and matchplay – than any other archer on the field.

His teammate is no slouch himself.

Elzinga is a multiple international medallist, last won a stage of the Hyundai Archery World Cup in 2014 and was second at the Final in its first ever year – 2006 – behind defending World Games Champion Wilde.

USA

Intel: The most winning archer on the Wroclaw field, Wilde has been victorious in 76% of the matches he’s lined up for in his career (in our database). That’s more than Hansen’s 73% and Schloesser’s 71%. The reigning World Games Champion hasn’t won an event of this magnitude since 2013 – but has always remained in the mix and on the podium.

Schaff was, perhaps, a surprise qualifier after the US trials, making the two-man team ahead of regulars at World Archery events. His previous experience in the format has been, mainly, at indoor events – and he recently finished fourth at the Indoor Archery World Cup Final in Las Vegas.

In other words… Kris is something of an unknown.

Short: Reigning champion returns.

The prediction

The first archer from an Asian country to get a World Games medal was Oonuki Wataru in the recurve field archery event, the first archery competition in Wroclaw.

He won’t be the last Asian archer to climb the podium this week.

The compound target archery competition at the Wroclaw 2017 World Games starts on 29 July next to Szczytnicki Park.